Monday, May 28, 2018

Bob Gibson in My Collection

It's been almost three weeks since I've posted. I did say a while ago that, being slammed at work until mid-July, I'd have trouble posting until then. It's more true than I thought it would be, and hence the long absence. Anyway, with the long Memorial Day weekend, I do have a bit of time, and thought I would finish up this long-planned post on Bob Gibson.

1969 Topps Bob Gibson.

1972 Topps Bob Gibson.

This beat-up 1969 Bob Gibson card has long had a place of pride in my binder. I feel certain that I bought this at Stale Gum in Newark, DE in the 80s. Stale Gum was a card shop on Main Street in the 80s, and it closed around the time that about a dozen other shops opened. So, going to Stale Gum was a feature of my early collecting days, and I remember getting some of my first-ever pre-1978 cards there, like my 1974 Carlton Fisk and Billy Williams cards, and this Bob Gibson. The 1972 Gibson is a recent addition to my collection, as part of my project to assemble a 1972 Topps set. (Current status on the 1972 set: just over 300 cards, for just over 38% of the total.)

1973 Topps Bob Gibson.

1974 Topps Bob Gibson.

The 1969 card is special to me for more than just my memories of going to Stale Gum, but also for baseball reasons: it reflects his monster 1968 year with his 1.12 ERA. They say that the three best pitchers of the 60s are Bob Gibson, Sandy Koufax, and Juan Marichal. A natural strategy for me to get Gibson into my collection, when I was a kid in the late 80s/early 90s, was to go for cards in bad condition like the 1969, and for cards at the end of his career. Being a great pitcher of the 60s, these 1973 and 1974 cards are some of his last, and I've always been happy to have them since I like both designs so much.

1975 Topps Bob Gibson.

Pacific Legends Bob Gibson.

I also got his 1975 card back in the day. The 1969, 1973, 1974, and 1975 made my Bob Gibson collection deeper than what I had for most other 1960s Hall-of-Famers. I also pulled this Pacific Legends card of him from a wax pack. I guess I have a couple of other nostalgia cards of him, like from the K-Mart sets, but as far as things like that go, I think I like the Pacific cards best.

Thanks for reading! Like I said, through mid-July, posting will be spotty, but I'll do what I can here and there.

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About Me

Growing up, I had a few baseball cards starting with some 1979 Topps, but started seriously collecting when I could go to the local 7-Eleven by myself to buy packs of 1987 Topps. When the 1994 strike happened, I checked out completely from baseball and baseball cards for about 20 years. Since 1994, until the summer of 2017, my cards were in storage at my parents' house. I have now reclaimed them and have returned to the collecting world.

The Pirates have long been my favorite team, but I grew up watching the Phillies and, to a lesser extent, the Orioles.